North Carolina Man Puts Up Billboard To Find Dates In Chicago

Busy Travel Weekend Ahead For Labor Day

CHICAGO (CBS) — You might think a man who lives in North Carolina putting up a billboard in Chicago looking for dates is a desperate move, but Gordon Engle doesn’t think so.

“If you think about it, somebody spends $100,000 on their education, right? And how much for a house? Fifty grand for a car? And so then they go, ‘Well, I won’t spend a few thousand dollars to find the love of my life?’” he said. “Well, that’s kind of backwards.”

Engle, 49, put up a billboard with his photo and the message “…I’m Gordon. Let’s have dinner!” along the Stevenson Expressway, along with the name of his website, HelpGordyFindLove.com.

“When Match.com came out 10 years ago, I guarantee you when people were telling their friends, ‘I’m going to put my profile up on the Internet for the world to see,’ people were going, ‘What? On the Internet? Are you desperate?’” he said.

Engle lives in North Carolina, but put up a billboard here because he was born in Elmhurst, still does work here with his company, and has family in the area. He also said his parents met in Chicago and were married for 50 years.

“Someone says ‘The most wildest thing I did while I got drunk for a week straight …’ Okay, that’s interesting. That might be a deal killer if you do that a lot,” he said.

He said he thinks his billboard is safer than online dating, which he admitted he’s tried.

“You’ve got a lot of fake profiles on there, and a lot of people running games,” he said. “Nine out of ten women that write me say ‘I, too, am frustrated with Internet dating. A bunch of goofballs.’ Yeah, I get the same story from everybody.”

Engle said he hopes the billboard stays up about another week, and he’s expecting to meet a few women when he’s in Chicago next week.

“Right now, I want to start as friends,” he said. “My parents were married for 50 years, and they were friends first. My brothers and sisters are married, and they’ve all been married over 20 years. They started as friends first.”

According to his website, he’s 6 feet tall, 200 pounds, and has blond hair, and blue eyes. He lists his “special skills” as cooking, water skiing, piano, and guitar.